1 down, 40 to go

After an intense 30 hours of traveling, I am officially settled in in Madrid with a piso, went through orientation, have my abono, have a bank account, have a cell phone, and taught my first class today (AH). I arrived late last Sunday, had two days of orientation, and have spent every minute since exploring Madrid (croquetas and vino). I also went to Madrid Oktoberfest since I didn't get to make it to the real one!

I am extremely fortunate to have already found a piso before I got here, so I was able to avoid the intense stress of being homeless for an extended period of time. I made Spanish friends when studying abroad and they needed a roommate right as I was looking. Like most other Auxiliares, I have more than an hour commute to my school. I weighed my options of living with Spanish friends and trying to live closer to my school, and the Spaniards won.

My first day at my school we met to go over what the coordinator's expectations were, what our schedules were (Mondays off WOOOO), and how the Spanish school system works. There are two other teachers from CIEE at my school and two from the government. I feel really confident I got very lucky with my school as well. In my first class today the students asked SO many questions about the United States and spoke better English than I expected. They asked if I spoke Spanish and had to lie because I didn't want them to know. The hardest thing so far is trying not to laugh when they crack a broma in Spanish!

I'm really lucky with my schedule as I don't have to go in until 10:20 two days a week and don't work after 2:20pm!

Thanks for reading, can't wait to post again soon!

-Tracy

P.S. I hung my clothes to dry a few days ago and ate lunch at 3pm today so I'm basically a local!!!!